Wooden Boat Festival a big success

Australia’s rich maritime culture was celebrated at the seventh Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart recently. Since 1994, the biennial event in and around Hobart’s docks has celebrated the unique character and appeal of craft constructed from timber, the world’s traditional and time-honoured boat-building material. With its superb native specialty timbers such as Huon and King Billy pine, Tasmania is the ideal location to showcase the craft and art of wooden boat design and construction. This festival showcased a record number of vessels with more than 500 boats ranging from dinghies to tall ships. End-to-end they would form a 4.5km flotilla!

Tribute to a Tasmanian Tiger

Margaret Scott, literary icon of Tasmania, human rights activist, ABC television panellist with gently understated but devastating humour, died at the age of 71 on Monday, August 29.

Born in Bristol, England in 1934, she emigrated to Tasmania in 1959 and subsequently took up the position of head of the University of Tasmania’s English Department.

She retired in 1987 to pursue her writing of novels, magazine articles and, most notably, poetry.

Margaret Scott was particularly asscociated with the Port Arthur community and the arts community.

Jurassic legacy

In a moment of geological high drama that may have lasted less than a million years, Tasmania received a huge share of accessible dolerite, the rock that threatened, intrigued and misled our early explorers and visitors. An extract from a fascinating book by David Leaman starts here

Google loves us

Our new Bed & Breakfast in Tasmania blog has got to Number 1 position on Google if, like most visitors, you search for “bed and breakfast in Tasmania”.

Other variations on the theme also get us on the home page.

The shape of Tasmania

The whimsical, wonderful and weird ways in which Tasmania’s distinctive triangular shape has been used by illustrators, cartoonists and graphic designers are featured in an online exhibition created by the State Library of Tasmania. More is revealed here.

The Umbrella Shop

It may not be a secret for Launcestonians, who know the landmark shop at 60 George Street from their earliest days as the very place to run to if it starts to rain when you’ve forgotten your umbrella.

Visitors are always intrigued to come across this sweetly old-fashioned shop filled with umbrellas, teatowels of the kind that make great packable lightweight souvenirs, some stunning aprons, too, with matching padded oven cloths, and gifts with a Tasmanian provenance.

Cake Decorating Shop

The Cake Decorating Shop is a family affair, at 4 Cascade Street, South Hobart, with home-made cakes and biscuits that you might not have time to make yourself.

Closed on Sunday and Monday but open from 10am to 5pm for the rest of the week.

A specialty is delicious, real, sponge cakes in vanilla and chocolate, unfilled — create your own spectacular with your choice of filling.

You may need to call ahead to be sure of getting one, although there are usually some frozen and they thaw extremely well. The rock cakes are delectable and you will also find a variety of biscuits at reasonable prices for great quality. (03) 6224 0722, — JS

The Flower Room

The Flower Room, upstairs at 147 Liverpool Street, is one of the few co-operatives in Hobart and it sells ﬂowers in season at very reasonable prices.

Better still, you’ll ﬁnd blooms that are not always available at ﬂorist’s — such as roses that are perfumed and bunches of divine smelling sweet peas. Fresh seasonal fruit and vegies are also available, along with golden-yolked free range eggs and Lucaston

Park Apple Juice at a price as tempting as its taste. It pays to shop early, as supplies go very quickly.

It opens from 8.30am until sold out, which is sometimes as early as 11.30 the same morning. Phone if you wish to have something kept for you or to order in advance. (03) 6223 2744. — JS

Syndicate

Stanton Bed and Breakfast
The magnificent convict-built country manor, Stanton, was built in 1817, and is situated on one of Tasmania's first land grant sites — 16 acres of pasture and orchards at Magra, in the heart of the historical and beautiful Derwent Valley.

Red Tag Trout Tours
Roger Butler leads this one-man Tasmanian guiding operation which caters to flyfishers, from all over the world, who share a common goal: getting a wild brown trout to hand.